Starting Over
by TheDoctorMulder
Summary: Rose and the Doctor battle their demons after being left on the beach. TentooxRose
1. Bad Wolf Bay, Part Deux

Starting Over

A shoutout to my dear friend and beta for this piece, Hawkerin!

Chapter 1: Bad Wolf Bay, Part Deux

Rose Tyler stood there on that cold, godforsaken beach and looked at the square depression in the sand where the TARDIS stood just seconds before. She felt numb inside, cold, like she had died again. This was wrong, this was so very wrong.

She felt a hand slip into hers. It fit perfectly, as always. She tore her eyes away from the square on the ground and looked into those familiar brown orbs for a moment. He stood there next to her, staring back with intensity, and she had to look away again, back at the square on the ground. His hand tightened on hers, as if he was afraid that she was going to pull away.

"What the hell just happened?" she asked, finally finding her voice. She hated how it cracked, how she wanted to drop to her knees.

"Rose," the Doctor softly called out her name, bringing her attention to him and back to the problem at hand. "I know that this isn't what you expected, but-"

"I shoulda known really," she interrupted him, harshly. She yanked her hand out of his and took a step back. "Every bloody time, 'm always pushed away, sent away, twice now sent to another bleedin' universe. I should probably just get it already, yeah?" she walked off as fast as she could, away from him before he could reply to her.

Her mother yelled, "Rose? Your Dad's sending us a car out of Bergen. They'll be here in about forty five minutes."

"Lovely," Rose replied back sarcastically, and kept walking to the place where the car would enter the beach.

XxXxXxXx

The Doctor stood there, unable to comprehend what she just said for a moment. When understanding came to him, it hit like a bolt of lightning. He did have a habit of sending her away, or even worse, pushing her away. At the Game Station, he sent her away to save her life, hoping she'd have a fantastic life. When Rose met Sarah Jane, he took that as an opportunity to push her away, hoping she'd walk away. He brought Mickey on board, hoping he'd put some distance between them. And while the situation with Reinette wasn't really what it seemed to Rose and Mickey at the time, he took advantage of the misunderstanding at first and hoped it'd drive her away.

She stayed with him through it all. The strife he introduced to their relationship seemed to make it grow stronger, contrary to his good intentions. And he finally gave up pushing her away.

Then came the biggest betrayal, when he put that yellow button on her and let Pete take her away, hoping that she'd be safe and happy in a universe where her father was still alive, with her mother there, and Mister Mickey, who was so beneath her, but would treat her well.

Not that he wanted her away, he just wanted her safe, and to live the life he could never have. And every time, he sent his hearts away too. But now, he could have that life, and it was just one heart now.

With the clarity of three years away from her, he made a decision right then and there. Nothing was going to keep him from being with her. There were no lifespan issues, no wall between the universes, no more changing his face, and hoping she'd love the next one.

He could be with her properly now, without the fear of living centuries after her passing. Nothing was going to stop him now.

Except her.

He knew she was furious, and she had the right to be. He didn't know what she had gone through in the years since, but he knew it was a lot, and that she had walked several universes trying to find him.

Well, the other him, with the TARDIS, in the other universe.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? There were two of him now, and they had managed to make her stay in this universe by telling her that the other him would be okay without her, and that this him wouldn't. He had just essentially told her that he didn't really need her. That whatever she went through to make sure that he wasn't alone was for nothing.

Well that was just fucking wizard.

He had to fix this. He'd start all over if that's what it took to win her heart back.

"Don't worry, Doctor, we'll take care of ya," Jackie Tyler said softly. "And you're really the same as 'im?" she asked, "save you're part 'uman?"

"Yeah, it's just like when I regenerated at Christmas, new body, still the Doctor," he reassured her.

"I still don't understand that."

"It's pretty complicated. Basically, the body is not the person, what makes a person is memories, and I have all of the same memories, feelings, basic thought patterns and all, it's just all stuck in this part human body with this one heart." He put his hand over his heart and tried his best not to let on how wrong it felt and to keep from making comments like he had with Donna.

Suddenly, his waist was enveloped in the arms of one Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler. He just stood there for a moment in shock as the woman who once nearly slapped him into another body squeezed him.

When she pulled back, she looked him in the eye and said, "thank you."

"For what?" he nearly squeaked.

"For my family. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have my husband or my beautiful boy. And if it wasn't for _this_ you," she emphasized 'this', "I wouldn't have my daughter, either."

She glanced over at her daughter, who walked off into the distance, then looked back at him knowingly. "She'll come around eventually," she told him. "She's daft about ya."

"I sure hope so, Jackie."

They watched Rose sit down on a big rock and put her head in her hands.

"Go to her, you plum," Jackie commanded.

"I don't think it's such a good idea-"

"Go to her," she repeated, "We're all gonna be in that car together for at least forty-five minutes, you might as well try to get talking during the forty or so minutes until the car gets here."

One didn't go against the advice of Jackie Tyler when it came to what to do with her daughter, at least not if you valued your face. He sighed, "I'll try."

"Go on," she nudged him.

And that's how he found himself walking towards the woman he loved for so very long, and had never thought that he'd ever see again. The walk seemed to stretch on forever, but the innate time sense that he still carried told him that it was only 1 minute, 20 seconds before he reached her.

"You know what's funny?" she asked, without turning around or looking up when he finally stood behind her. "I worked for years tryin' to figure out a way to come back, and then when the cracks started. I traveled, I don't even know 'ow many universes, I lost count after about, oh a 'undred fifty. Travelin' through the cracks, all on my own, tryin' to get to get to the right one. The things I've seen, that I've had to do to survive..." she trailed off for a moment, thinking about it.

She ran her fingers through her hair, and sat up straighter. "And I did all of that, I found the right universe, but when I finally got here- there, I kept missing the TARDIS. By minutes, by hours, by days a few times. There was one time where I was being pulled back to this universe against my will, just as the TARDIS started materializin' right in front of me."

He walked around her, and got down on his knees in front of her, taking her hand in his. She finally looked him in the eye, rejection and anger written all over her face.

He continued the end of the story, "You get through all of that, and then you're dropped off right back in this universe. Back on_ this_ damned beach. Right where you started. And then, 'cause I have an incredibly thick head, I practically tell you I'll be just fine without you, thanks for playing, here's a parting gift!" He said the last part like he was a game show announcer.

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards, and he considered that a win.

"Was that a smile?"

"No"

"Yes, it was, you smiled." He was deliberately replaying the moments after he regenerated before. "Look, Rose, I know what this must look like to you. I know we said we would never leave you behind, and that looks like what he just did. But he didn't, not really, because he left you with me. And I promise, I really am him."

It seemed that all of her emotions left her, save despondency. "Yeah?"

"Yes." He nodded emphatically.

"So how long until you leave me as well?" she whispered. And his heart stopped.

XxXxXxXx

She knew they were the same man. She had fallen in love with a Time Lord, and had been through a regeneration, well, technically two now, and she knew that the true Time Lord had nothing to do with the body, but with the memories and knowledge. The man in front of her had already proved that he had all of the memories and knowledge of his other self.

That's not what she was worried about, what she was worried about was the Doctor's propensity to push her away. She couldn't do it again, couldn't lose him again after giving him yet another chance. And she couldn't help but think that she was betraying the other one.

"Oh, Rose," he sighed and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. He cupped her cheek in his hand and she couldn't help but lean into it and close her eyes. "I promise, I'll never leave you, at least, not by choice. He didn't want to, either, you need to know that."

She let herself see what he was feeling, and saw sadness, fear, a touch of anger, rejection, forgiveness, understanding, and hope. Lots of hope. How could he have hope? He had just been taken from all of his friends, his universe, and his lifelong companion and the last thing of his home planet, the TARDIS. In place of all of that, he had been dropped off in a universe that he knew very little about, with nothing but the clothes on his back.

She knew how that felt, and resolved right there and then to not be angry with him for the things his other self had done after they split off.

But that didn't mean that she had to just let it go, either. This him would have to prove himself.

Suddenly, the Doctor groaned and put his hands to his temples.


	2. The Past

Chapter 2: The Past

Suddenly, the Doctor cried out and held his hands to his temples.

"Doctor!" she gasped out, "what's goin' on?" She grabbed his shoulders in fear.

After only a couple of seconds, he took his hands off of his head and shook it. He looked off into the distance, where the depression was that marked the place where the TARDIS had stood only minutes before.

"She's gone," he whispered. "She's gone." He looked pale, like he was about to be sick, and it scared Rose.

"Doctor, are you okay?" she asked, worried. The way he cried out reminded her of the last time she saw the Doctor get a new body, and she was worried this version of him would have a neural implosion or something else similar would happen. Would this part human body even be able to survive something like that? Before, one of his hearts had quit working, and this time, he didn't have a backup.

He looked over at her. His face showing all the sorrow and pain he felt in that moment.

"Right now, no, I'm not," he admitted. The admission shocked her. The Doctor never admitted anything other than being alright. At least not since he had become the man with the great hair and the penchant for suits.

He took her hand again and smiled softly down at her. "But I will be," he finished.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked him, still worried.

"Oh, Rose, just be your magnificent self. You're already helping me more than you could ever know." This time, his smile was genuine.

"What was that about? And will it happen again?" she interrogated him.

He stared out at the ocean for a while, apparently deep in thought. She knew this behavior, and gave him some time to answer her, if he was going to at all. She knew this was going to be a difficult subject, and, after the day they just had, she wasn't going to push too hard, not quite yet. Just when she started to be sure that he wasn't going to answer her, he spoke.

"Imagine living with something every single day of your life. Maybe your neighbors always play their music just a bit too loud in the flat next to you, or your house is right on the road and you hear the cars coming down the road almost constantly. It's always there, when you're sleeping, when you're up and about, even when you're making a lot of noise yourself. And then one day, the neighbors move somewhere else and are replaced with quieter ones, or you move to a quieter area. And suddenly, that noise isn't around anymore. Even though that noise had become white noise, something you never actually noticed when it was around, the world is now far too quiet. You can't sleep without that noise, you even have trouble thinking without it, it's become so ingrained into your life."

"I don't have to imagine," Rose said softly when he paused. "Had that happen the first time I was brought here."

The Doctor looked over at her, surprised. His expression quickly turned thoughtful. "Ah, you would, wouldn't you? Yeah, you would, the TARDIS's hum."

"Not just the hum, I missed the feelin' of her in my 'ead," Rose whispered.

"You could actually feel that?" he queried, with a bit of shock.

"Well, yeah, it was intermittent, like I'd feel emotions sometimes, like a pleased feeling that wasn't my own and it came with a slight change in the hum."

"The TARDIS always did really like you," he said. "Some humans have low level telepathic abilities," he explained. "You may have empathic abilities. It would explain some things."

"So that's what you're going through right now?" she asked. "That doesn't quite explain the level of pain I saw."

"No, you're right, it doesn't," he admitted. He took a deep breath and sat down beside her, once again looking anywhere but at her. He swallowed before he continued his explanation. "Okay, then, let's try this. Now imagine that this noise has been there, quite literally you're whole life, no matter where you are, except it's not actually a noise, it's an awareness, and all of a sudden, it's gone."

Rose gasped as she understood what he was and wasn't saying. He was talking about the end of the war and the loss of his people. He had told her before that he'd feel the presence of others if they existed.

"Anyway," he continued, "I always had the TARDIS to help, always there, in the back of my head, that little telepathic tingle. If she had been any other TARDIS, I would have probably gone completely mad." He gave a little laugh. "Don't say it," he ordered her, pointing a finger at her.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Rose answered back, a little cheekily. Feeling emboldened, she asked him, "Why do you say, if she had been any other TARDIS?"

He gave a crooked smile. "My impossible TARDIS. She was ancient when I...acquired her. Had been decommissioned. Navigation knackered, it was said, but really, she had aged enough to start overriding the restraints put on her." He shook his head and laughed ruefully. "You see, the Time Lords thought of the TT capsules as machines."

Rose scoffed at that, and the Doctor nodded at her. "Mine was a Type 40, and the first TARDIS that officially had 'full sentience' was the Type 102. Turns out, they had repressed them, because the first capsules were very willful. She had been used as a research vessel. The bare minimum of controls, mostly organic. Over time, I did major modifications, and freed her as much as I could. She took care of me, and I did my best to take care of her."

"And now, even she's gone," Rose whispered, saddened at the thought. She turned and hugged him in an effort to comfort him.

XxXxXxXx

He was thankful that Jackie had given them space to talk while he explained to Rose what had happened to him. Partially explain, anyway. He couldn't tell her what he had felt from Donna at the same time the link to the TARDIS broke. Not yet, anyway. He hoped that his other self wouldn't do something stupid now. The poor bastard.

He felt sorry for his past self, despite how much he hated him. And he did hate him. He was him, after all. He thought about those last moments on his beautiful ship before he had been abandoned here as they sat quietly, waiting for the car.

XxXx

_On the TARDIS_

He watched Rose watch his other self walk up the sloped walkway from the doors to the console. There were so many possibilities here, so much uncertainty, and he couldn't see one damned bit of it because Rose was deeply involved. He still couldn't see any of her mysterious time-line. Sure, when he had first met her, he had seen a glimmer, just for a moment, but then it disappeared completely before he could register any part of it.

"Just time for one last trip," his double? Twin? Counterpart? said. He gave him a significant look. At the same time, he heard his own voice, but not, tell him _"take care of her, give her everything she could __ever want."_

Suddenly, he knew what his original self had planned. He was so thick to think anything else could have possibly been in his thoughts.

He was angry. How dare he make decisions like that without consulting her! Or him, for that matter. He had a sudden urge to slap the other man into his next body.

But mixed in with the anger was hope. He lost a heart, he lost his lives, he was losing his home and lives long companion, his friends, and even his entire universe, literally. All within the span of a few hours. However, he was gaining Rose. He was gaining a life with her, where he could love her without fear of the centuries after her death.

"Darlig Ulv Stranden, better known as Bad Wolf Bay."

The Doctor immediately left the console room while his other self set the TARDIS up for a jump between universes. With preparation beforehand, the TARDIS wouldn't die when they materialized in Pete's World.

He went to his room, thanking the TARDIS for putting the door to the room just off from the console room. He grabbed some things he'd need. Parts that would be difficult, if not impossible to obtain in a 21st century Earth, even if they traded extensively with other planets. He also grabbed a couple of the bags of gems that he had picked up over the centuries on planets and times where they were so common as to be worthless. He packed his bigger on the inside pockets with his blue suits. He left one for the other Doctor, and took one of the copies of the brown one in it's place.

He left the room that used to be his, and was greeted with the door to Rose's room. He took the hint and entered her room, where he took some photos, mostly those from Rose's childhood. He had taken them from their flat after Canary Wharf, sickened at the thought of people who weren't relatives having them. Jackie would love to have those. He also took some from their travels. Rose documented every trip, and he was sure she'd want some photos of his past self and of Jack. All of the pictures he took were right out in the open, and he knew they weren't before.

The entire quick grab had only taken 2 minutes, 45.3 seconds from the moment he had entered his room, and he was never gladder to have trans-dimensional engineering, an eidetic memory, and a sentient ship with the ability to see time-lines better than any Time Lord ever could.

As he walked out of Rose's room, he saw Donna on her way toward him.

"Is he ready to send me to my exile yet?" he asked her, more harshly than he intended. Luckily, she understood.

"Oh, Spaceman," she chided him as if he were being silly. "You'll have Rose, and you won't be stuck on Earth if you don't want to be."

"What are you going on about?" he asked her, confused.

"Take some coral, grown your own," she said, as if it were obvious.

"But it takes thousands of years to grow a TARDIS," the Doctor protested.

"Nope!" she exclaimed, popping the 'p' as he so often did. "If you shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabilizer to a foldback harmonic of 36.3, you accelerate the growth by the power of 59!"

The Doctor thought for a second, and realized that she was right, but there was still one problem.

"Rose and I won't live that long," he argued. "We'd have to let the TARDIS die."

"That is what children are for, Dumbo," Donna lectured him sarcastically.

"That's being awfully presumptuous," he returned. "After what we're about to do, I wouldn't be surprised if she never wants to see me again." His singular heart raced in an attempt to leave his chest at the thought.

"She'll come around. You were made for each other," Donna assured him. "Just be yourself. She seems to like that for some reason." She looked him up and down. "I dunno why, you're just a skinny little streak of nothing with a complex."

"Thanks so much for that," he replied, dryly. "Way to help with the self loathing."

"I would have thought the planet sized ego would have taken care of that by now," she retorted.

"Oi!" he protested. The word came out like hers, a guttural sound/word that was indignant, sarcastic, and loud. He winced internally at the way he sounded now and probably always would.

That's when they noticed a coral outcropping that wasn't there before. On it, there laid a piece of coral that was separated from the ship.

"Well, that settles that," Donna smugly said. Suddenly, she came forward and hugged him. A hug which he immediately returned.

"Goodbye, Spaceman," she whispered.

"Goodbye, Earthgirl," he said back. "I will miss you so very, very much."

They separated and walked back to the console room, where the other Doctor was finishing up the preparations. Rose was talking to her mother while she watched the Doctor, and he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he told her what was happening right then and there.

Donna helped, trading technical data with the other Doctor with ease.

"Blimey, I wish I could understand half of what you just said," Rose told her.

"Yeah, just what ol' skinny boy needs, a friend who's an equal. The universe has been waitin' for me!" Donna exclaimed enthusiastically.

He was glad that Donna had found her confidence.

Rose had been asking what they were talking about, taking an opportunity to learn something, so while the other two set the controls, he explained what they had talked about as best as he quickly could for her. When he finished, she gave him a smile that made his heart stutter for a moment.

The other Doctor watched them with a devastated look on his face that disappeared whenever one of the Tyler women looked like they might look his way.

"Okay, then, time to get you home," the Doctor in brown said as soon as the controls were set.

This was it. Goodbye to the life he had for so many centuries, more than he was sure of. Goodbye to the home he had known as long.

Hello to the unknown, to a life with Rose, hopefully. A life of day after day. He could have that life now after all.

The ride through the Void was bumpy. Once they settled, he went towards the door. As he passed his other self, the man put something in his pocket.

XxXxXxXx

When the Doctor and Rose got quiet, Jackie went over to them and sat down on the next rock over on the other side of Rose. She wasn't going to let them have too much time to be silent and think too much before they got in the car.

She began educating him on the differences between this universe and their original universe. There was so much to learn, but the Doctor was a smart man, usually, and he'd probably pick up on it a lot faster than she and Rose did.

After a few minutes, Rose started adding in various bits of information. They spent the rest of the time until the car that had been sent for them arrived, a bit late. As time went on, she noticed that the Doctor and her daughter had begun to hold hands again. They had also scooted closer to one another. Neither of them seemed to even realize that they did it.

"Oh, I'm glad the car is here!" the Doctor exclaimed when it arrived. "It isn't half cold out here!"

That's when she realized that they had both been shivering slightly for a while. It was no wonder, the Doctor only had his suit, and Rose had her blue jacket, but it was short and only provided so much protection. She thought with some amusement about how they both matched right then, blue jacket, and purplish shirts.

They both stood up at the same time and stretched.

"Well, then," Rose started.

"Allons-y," both said at the same time.

They both looked at each other and broke out in identical grins.

"Hey!" the Doctor exclaimed, delighted.

"So that did stick, then? I always wondered," she said with her trademark grin.

"And you've adopted it!" the Doctor laughed.

"I think I just got a toothache," Jackie grimaced.

"Oh, Jackie, are you okay?" the Doctor asked her, concern written all over his features. "Maybe you should get that checked out. But it could just be a sensitivity to the biting cold."

The clueless plum. He was sweet, though.

"I'm fine," she told him. "That was a comment on how the two of you are so sweet, it hurts."

She immediately wished that she hadn't made that declaration. Rose's face immediately dropped and she turned around and headed for the car. The Doctor shot Jackie a helpless look. And followed her. With a sigh, Jackie Tyler followed her daughter and the Doctor to the car.


	3. 53 Minutes In A Car

Chapter 3: 53 minutes

A/N: Raising the rating now, for someone's incredibly naughty thoughts.

He didn't want to admit it, but he was exhausted. He had no clue why, he hadn't done anything. Sitting in a warm car after the biting cold and wind of Norway's oddest named beach wasn't helping either.

The driver that picked them up was a young man that couldn't have been any older than 20. He was baby-faced and looked like he never even needed to shave. He had greeted Jackie warmly when the three of them got into the car, and Jackie seemed to know the young man. She sat next to him as they discussed the latest episode of one of her soaps. He didn't recognize anything of it, so it probably was something that belonged to this universe only.

He had a guilty pleasure in _Eastenders_ because of the woman. Not that he'd ever admit it, especially to Jackie Tyler. Rose had caught him catching up on episodes once, which he played off as needing to know what her mother harped on about all the time.

Rose sat behind the driver, her head down and her hands in her lap. She picked at her fingernails, one of her many habits she always had when she was nervous.

"Do they have _Eastenders_ here?" he whispered to her, leaning closer.

She looked up at him sharply. Then a small smirk graced her face. She glanced at her mother to make sure she wasn't paying attention, leaned in, and whispered back, "I _knew_ it!"

"Knew what?" he tried to play innocent

"You do like Mum's favorite show!" she accused.

"Rose Tyler, I don't know what you're talking about," he sniffed.

"Don't lie to me, Time Lord. I've caught you catchin' up with it before." Her tone sounded angry, but from the way the corners of her mouth turned up and her eyes sparkled, he knew she was amused.

"The accusation that I'd ever be interested in one of your mother's soaps..." he scoffed.

"Okay then," she said as she leaned back. "Sorry 'bout that."

_Good_, he thought. There was that uncomfortable truth averted.

Rose then leaned back in as far as she could. "'Cause there's no _Eastenders_ in this universe," she added smugly.

"What?!"

XxXxXxXx

Jackie talked with their driver, Charlie, who's husband had gotten a part in her new favorite soap. The two of them were discussing plot lines when she became aware of the Doctor and Rose whispering in the back seat. She tried to let them have their discussion in peace, but couldn't help but try to catch some of it. Their voices were too low to catch most of it, but she did hear her daughter apologize to the Doctor. Now she desperately wanted to know what they were talking about.

"What?!" the Doctor squeaked, and Rose howled with laughter.

Jackie turned back to look at the two of them. The Doctor was sputtering and Rose was shaking with laughter.

Yeah, those two idiots would be alright.

"You two mind keeping it down back there?" she said, as if she was bothered.

XxXxXxXx

The Doctor and Rose were silent after her mother chastised them. Rose mostly looked out the window, and the Doctor mostly looked at Rose. He tried not to look like he was, though.

"So, did you enjoy your trip to Norway, Mrs Tyler?" their driver asked.

"Yes, I did, but it would 'ave been much better if our car hadn't broken down," Jackie replied.

"I hope it doesn't stay there too long," the young man said.

"Oh, it won't, there was already a wrecker on the way when we left," she assured him.

"I could have driven to the car, ma'am," he told her.

"Nah," Jackie said, "it was 20 miles further. We took Rose's gizmo to the beach."

So, they had a cover story for why they were in Norway and needed to be picked up already? An elaborate cover story too, for such a small thing. And Jackie delivered it flawlessly. She'd had plenty of practice at this.

Had he just gotten his first taste of what life would be like here?

And what was Rose's gizmo? He'd have to ask later, when they were alone.

Rose slipped the upper part of her seat belt off her shoulder and leaned over on the seat, putting her head on the seat next to him. During her travels with him, she had learned to have a kip just about anywhere. The seat of a car would be comfortable compared to some of the places he had seen her take catnaps.

It had only been 16 minutes, 32.1 seconds since they had gotten into the car, they still had a minimum of half an hour left to go until they were in Bergen. And all he had to talk to was Jackie Tyler and the driver, who's name he hadn't managed to catch yet.

He didn't know what to do, he wanted to stay mostly quiet so Rose could get the nap she obviously needed, but he couldn't pull out one of his devices in front of the driver, who obviously knew nothing about the situation. It might raise too many awkward questions.

He settled for a combination of looking out the window and watching the scenery pass him by, and watching Rose sleep. Damn, why was he so tired?

XxXxXxXx

When they finally pulled up to the hotel that they were going to be staying at, the Doctor was happy for the change of pace.

"Hey there, Sleepyhead, wakey wakey," he shook Rose to wake her. She roused slowly, sat up, and looked around, trying to get her bearings.

"We're here, then," she stated once she realized where they were. "Thanks for the ride," she said to the driver, then got out of the car and closed the door. When she was out of the car, she stretched and waited for the other two to get out.

He thanked the driver too, and exited the car, glad to be out of it. The backseat wasn't exactly made for a person of his height.

They entered the hotel, where Jackie checked them in. They followed her up to the hallway where they were staying for the night. Once to their rooms, she handed the Doctor a key, then disappeared into her room, telling the other two to catch up.

Rose was nervous, and tried to hide it. So was the Doctor. This was going to be the first time that they were properly alone together since, well, since before ghosts that weren't ghosts. The Doctor opened the door, and Rose followed him into the room.

Once inside, he leaned back against the door, closed his eyes, and drew in a deep breath.

"You all right, there?" Rose asked, worried.

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm alright," he said. "Just a little...overwhelmed?"

She looked sympathetic. "Yeah, I bet you are." She picked up the room service menu, looked it over quickly, and handed it to him. "Here, choose something, and we'll talk."

He quickly picked a Norwegian dish, and Rose ordered for them. While they waited for the food, Rose told him about their cover stories for herself and Jackie.

Before she could go any further, their food arrived. He had kjøttboller, which was surprisingly good. He'd just pointed at something pretty much at random when she handed him the menu.

Rose had ordered wine with their food, and it made him pleasantly warm.

While they ate, they talked about mundane things. When their meal was finished, they sat back and watched a few shows on the telly, shouting at it every once in a while when a character was being particularly thick.

"He's alone, now, ain't 'e?" Rose eventually said.

"What makes you say that?" he asked her, surprised. His words slurred a bit.

"She was 'uman," Rose stated simply. "If your brain's as big as you say, it mighta been too much for her."

He took her glass, put both of them down on the bed stand, and turned his full attention towards her. "Yes, he is, but he won't be for long. He'll find someone to show off to soon enough."

"I wish I could have split myself off in two as well," Rose sniffed. "Then everyone could be happy."

"Oh, Rose, he'll be okay, he'll be better off this time than I was last time we were on that beach. Last time, all he had was that knowledge that you were alive, this time, he knows you aren't alone, and that a part of him gets to have a proper chance at forever," he reassured her.

"Yeah?"

"Yes." He hugged her then, her head tucked under his chin. "I love you, Rose Tyler, all versions of me who know you love you, and always will."

She pulled back and stared into his eyes, searching for something. Then she crashed her lips to his. He kissed her back enthusiastically.

When she climbed up on him, he ignored the warning bells at the back of his mind. They shouldn't do this yet.

He continued ignoring his conscience as he lifted her shirt up and unhooked her bra.

As he flipped them over so that he was on top, he ignored the warning that this was going to go pear shaped.

His last thought before he cupped her bottom and slid inside of her was that his conscience could go straight to hell. After that, he couldn't think straight.

XxXxXxXx

He woke up from his intense dream. They were still in the car on their way to Bergen, and it had been 49 minutes, 39 seconds since he had gotten in the car. He looked over at Rose, who was asleep, curled up on the seat, her jacket and shirt had ridden up so that he could see a thin strip of her skin at her waist. He also got a nice view of that frankly fantastic arse he had been dreaming about a moment ago.

Nothing was certain yet, but she was warming up to him already, just a bit, and if he wasn't too thick from here on out, they'd be okay, he thought.

Once again, he had a wave of sorrow for his other self, who would surely never know just how good it was to properly be with her, because it would be good, it'd be more than good, it'd be absolutely brilliant.

Really, he should have taken her when he felt the storm coming. No, earlier. After the Coronation, he should have pushed her up against the console and lifted up all those petticoats. He should have made her properly exhausted on Krop Tor that night they spent there, instead of just holding her and watching her sleep. He should have pushed up that little denim number after the werewolf. Taken her on the applegrass. He wanted to do something when she was in that little black number after Pete's World Part One, but she was too distraught after Mickey chose to leave her for another universe.

To be honest, from the pheromones she gave off, he probably could have bent her over the console and sought his absolution in her thighs just after meeting Charles Dickens, but he was too much of a coward. What was he thinking with his "for a human" comment? Even back then, he could sense her insecurities, which he hadn't done nearly enough about. Definitely anytime after meeting the Slitheen, when he had just come right out and told her that he was willing to put her above the rest of the planet, even though he had only known her a few days.

He felt that he was stiff as a board, and tore his eyes away from the woman who had consumed his thoughts. With a glance at her, frankly terrifying, mother to make sure she hadn't noticed, he shifted around and lifted up his knees so that she couldn't see anything and tried to will himself calmer, only to find out that he didn't have any ability to control his blood flow like he used to. Come to think of it, he didn't used to get like that in the first place.

Oh, for Rassilon's sake, when the hell did he become such an animal?

He'd had so many regrets when he was still a real Time Lord. There would be no more regrets, not where that was concerned anyway. He'd tell her that he loved her every damned day, every damned hour if she needed to hear it.

Rose shifted, and her purple top lifted up, showing two words, or rather, the bottom half of two words that were very familiar to him. Sometime while she had been stuck here, she had gotten a tattoo on her side. It was blue, and looked like graffiti, which it often was when he saw those words. Why had Rose tattooed "Bad Wolf" on her side?

"Oh, you're up!" Jackie Tyler noticed. She promptly began telling him more about the recent history of Pete's World, well their world now, he supposed. He listened to her voice, knowing that this information was unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but very important if he wanted to appear that he was from this world. He didn't, but for the next five years, for sure, maybe longer, he had to be.

She kept up her commentary, making it seem like they were just discussing normal, everyday things until they arrived in Bergen. He had to hand it to her, she had managed to give him a lot of information in a very short time and never let on to the man who drove them, whose name he still hadn't caught, that he wasn't quite human, or that he was from another world.

He went to wake Rose before they pulled up to the hotel, but Jackie stopped him.

"Not like that," she said.

"Why not?" he asked, confused.

"She's scary when she wakes up," Jackie replied.

"Okay, then. How do you want to wake her?" He asked. What was Jackie talking about? Rose was always resistant to waking up, but there was nothing scary about it. More questions for later.

"Cover your ears, dear," she said to their driver when the car stopped. The man immediately complied.

"Rose!" she shouted, and the Doctor jumped, wishing he had covered his ears as well. At least he now knew that he still had his Time Lord hearing.

Rose opened her eyes and sat up quickly. She looked alert and ready for anything, except for the fact that he could see confusion in her eyes that quickly cleared. Okay, what was so scary about that?

She looked around and noticed that they were at the hotel. "Oh, we're here, brilliant. Thanks for the lift, Charlie," she said warmly.

"No problem, Agent Tyler," the young man, Charlie, apparently, replied.

"Give my love to Steve, and congratulations," she added.

"Will do, ma'am, and thanks!"

She got out of the car.

The Doctor thanked the man and followed her to the sidewalk, where they waited on her mother.

His innate time senses told him that he had been in the car for 53 minutes, 10 seconds.

"Alright, so the zeppelin will arrive 'ere at 10:30 in the morning, and we'll leave the hotel at the same time," Rose's mother informed them.

"Okay, then," Rose acknowledged. She took off her watch and reset it based on a digital clock across the road.

"We'd better get checked in, I guess," Jackie said "Your father's already got us rooms booked." She started up the stairs and added. "Oh, would you look at that, a doorman, you don't see many of those these days." She began babbling as she moved farther away from them.

The Doctor just followed the nattering woman, silently.


	4. Conversations

Chapter 4: Conversations

A/N: there's a link in my profile to a picture that was the inspiration for the view I describe. Also, a quick search for the aurora borealis over Norway showed almost everything in green. I thought that was interesting :)

This chapter is much more talky than I usually do, but these two have a lot to sort out.

XxXxXxXx

Rose followed her mother and the Doctor into the hotel. She was on autopilot, trying to not think about everything that happened, which was a fruitless pursuit.

She stood silently near the Doctor while her mother checked them into the hotel. She handed a key card to the Doctor, and kept the other one. Rose wasn't handed a card. It was silently implied that she could choose which person she would be staying with that night.

Part of her-a rather large part if she was being honest with herself- wanted to strangle her mother for this choice. It wasn't like they had to worry about the money. Now she was being forced into something she wasn't quite ready for yet. If her mother had gotten three rooms, she'd have been able to just go to her own room without any guilt.

Knowing her mum, though, she was probably just being practical. With the exception of Christmas and the fact that she was required by her husband's position in the world to host parties, her mum hadn't changed, really. Why get a third room when two would be just fine? She supposed she should feel lucky that it wasn't just one room.

They rode up the lift in silence. When the doors slid open, they were greeted with a standard hotel hallway, mostly in boring beige. Their rooms were right across the hall from one another: 808 and 809.

"Well," the Doctor started, "I guess this is us," he stated with a glance between the white paper envelope his key card was in and the number on the door.

"I'll be back out in a bit for a bite," Jackie told the Doctor before she put her key card in the door of 809 and pushed it open. She quickly disappeared into the room, leaving Rose alone in the hallway with the Doctor. The Doctor put the key card in the slot and entered the room. She made her choice quickly before she could think about it too much, and walked into the room behind the Doctor.

Once inside, she closed the door behind her. The Doctor turned around quickly at the sound with a surprised look on his face that quickly disappeared. She was nervous as hell. It wasn't like she hadn't slept in the same bed with him before, but it was always a jail cell situation, or they were posing as a couple and couldn't very well ask for different rooms. Except for that one night after they went to the coronation. That's when he held her, in her own bed, without any pretense. The sound of his hearts beating had lulled her to one of the most restful nights she'd ever had.

"D'you mind if I...?" she asked, without knowing what she meant to ask.

"Yes! Um...no? Um...sure go right ahead," the Doctor stumbled over his word choices. Rose went in deeper into the room and sat in one of the chairs that all hotels seemed to have, regardless of the time, place, universe, or quality. She chewed her thumb while she thought about what had just happened.

XxXxXxXx

He shifted for a moment, trying to decide whether to sit in the chair close to her or on the bed that seemed to take up the whole room, even though it was a spacious room. Rose chewed on her thumb, a tic that she had always had as long as he knew her. He decided that the chair was the better bet, and sat down in it, watching her.

He didn't know what to say or do, so he sat there, with his hands on the table and watched her. She wouldn't meet his eyes, just stared off into nothingness.

Suddenly, she stopped chewing her thumb and smacked the table hard. The suddenness of the gesture made him jump. "Goddammit!" she growled as soon as her hand hit the table. She jumped up and paced back and forth. "No warnin', no goodbye, no 'thank you', no 'fuck you.' Jus' drop us off in the middle of fuckin' nowhere, fif'y miles from anythin'. Over _two thousand_ miles by car an' ferry, an' seven hundred and fif'y or so miles by slow arse air ship from where we'll wind up!," she ranted.

"Rose-" he started, but was cut off.

"No discussion!" she nearly shouted, ignoring him. "'Ow 'ard would it 'a' been ta say, 'Rose, I have this idea.'" she mocked. "No, it's always just, 'ere's wha's gonna 'appen,' and you'll 'ave no choice but ta go wit' it.'"

Even though she was also talking about him, he couldn't help but agree with her. She was angry, she was really, properly angry, and she had every right to be. He realized that she had been keeping a mask carefully in place the entire time she had been in the presence of other people. The yellowish light in the room glinted off her eyes, and it looked like they were glowing intermittently.

"I worked years- _years _I don' even know 'ow many!" she continued her rant, "to escape this place. This stupid rock where nothing tastes right, an' the air smells wrong, and every bloody thing feels wrong!" She threw her hands up and ran them through her hair, then spun around and faced him. "I spent so long," Rose cried out "worried 'bout _you_, all on your own. I spent so bloody long tryin' to convince myself tha' you'd be okay, you'd find a hand to 'old as you musta before." Her voice broke as she continued, "an' then, when I finally found you… you…"

She growled and kicked the bedpost, then cried out and bent over, hands on the foot board of the bed. She gripped it tightly enough that her fingers turned white. Now he was worried. He'd seen her angry before. She burned with righteous indignation when it came to slavery, misogyny, and other words that end in a 'y', but he'd never seen her this angry before. He got up and went over to her in an effort to calm her.

Then she rounded on him and truly let loose.

"Why?" she cried out. "How could you!" She poked him in the chest. "You. Were. Dead!" Each word was punctuated by another poke.

"I was _what_?" he questioned in shock.

She took his jacket by the lapels just as she had on the beach and pulled him eye level with her.

"You were _dead,_" she hissed at him. "In a time line where Donna chose to be hired by a small firm rather than be a temp, You died at the First. Bleedin'. Chance. To. Off. Yourself!" The last words had been punctuated by a little shake. She then shoved him back a little.

"Rose, I didn't-"

"You told me that Time Lords didn't split off with the universes like everyone else, remember?" she accused. "Which means that _you did it_. I 'ad to rewrite years of time ta make sure that Donna always chose to go left so you would live! Your welcome, by the way! I sent ya a message I don' even know if you could 'ave got."

"Bad Wolf," he stated, to let her know that he had received it. His blood ran cold. That was proof that he had done it. Not that he doubted Rose, but it was proof that Donna's universe had become another time line to their prime universe-a must not be. Rose had somehow turned Donna's choice into a fixed point, which was no mean feat, even for a Time Lord.

XxXxXxXx

Rose stared at him, still angry. The exertion from her raging had made her warm, and she remembered that she was still wearing her jacket. Before she could decide if she wanted to take it off or leave the room, he spoke.

"When I heard that, I couldn't get back to Earth quickly enough," he told her softly.

"Why?" she asked suddenly.

"Why not?" he said, as though she'd lost her mind, "I l-"

"No, no, why did I have to see your body. Why did I have to rewrite time? Why did I have to watch the world fall apart?" She fired questions at him, not allowing him to say it again..

He sighed, put his hands in his pockets, and closed his eyes. When he opened them a second later, he asked, "how did I...?"

"Drowning. The Thames was drained," she told him in a clipped tone.

"Okay, um, right." One hand came out, and he started scratching at his neck.

"Why?" she repeated.

He came back over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders. "That was hours after...I had just said goodbye to you, and there I was..." he got quiet and got a dark look on his face.

Before she could process what he was saying, his stomach let out a loud grumble. In one of his usual mental whiplash inducing changes of mood, he looked down at it like it was a traitor.

"Oh, come on! A flippin' stomach grumble? How rubbish is that? Like I'm human!" he exclaimed with a disgusted look on his face.

It was so funny, that she couldn't help but laugh a bit.

"Oi! Why're ya laughing at me? This ain't funny!" He said indignantly, which only made her laughter worse. He'd picked up a bit of Donna's speech patterns in this regeneration, just like he had picked up a few of hers in his last body. He crossed his arms and gave her his best stern look.

"I hate to break it to ya," she reminded him, "but you are part 'uman now."

He had the same look on his face that he'd had just after her mother had kissed him. "Don't I know it," he pouted.

"Gimme a minute," she said, then ducked into the loo, where she checked her appearance. She fixed herself up to look presentable, then left the room and took the Doctor's arm.

"Come on, let's grab a bite," she told him.

They left the room and went to the lift. "Before we get out, I need to tell you that the people of this world tend towards xenophobia." They both knew how to handle themselves in a place that was xenophobic.

"Great," he said sarcastically. "Thanks, for the heads up," he added, softer.

"Always," she replied as the lift stopped.

The pair went to the nearest restaurant, where they found her mother working through her dinner.

"Oh, there the pair of ya are!" she exclaimed when she saw them. "I was wonderin' what you'd gotten up to."

XxXxXxXx

After a quick meal, where the Doctor had been wheedled by Jackie into telling them a story of something that happened with each of the girls she had met on the TARDIS, they went back outside.

"So, there's a museum where they take the last of every species and preserve them, huh?" Rose commented quietly.

"Yep," he replied, popping the 'p'.

"And the Ood are free," she happily added. "I wondered about them!"

"You knew?" he asked in shock.

"Well, yeah, I told off a couple of the people, asked an Ood if it liked bein' ordered about, and got accused of being a 'friend of the Ood.' Was fine with the accusation, but still."

He felt a warmth at hearing that, Rose hadn't forgotten to ask about them. "I never asked," he admitted.

"We had a lot on our minds at the time," Rose reasoned.

"It's no excuse," he despaired.

"Come on." She took his hand and pulled him along with her, but it wasn't to the hotel they were staying at. They went two blocks down and turned left, then another block and a half before they came to a small, high end grocer, where she went inside.

"How did you know where to go?" he asked. The Doctor was confused as to why they were there. They had just eaten.

"Went on a bit of a wander last time I was here-"

"Of course you did," the Doctor interrupted.

"If I didn't wander off so much, who'd have rescued your arse all those times? Or found out all those things?" she teased. "And interruptin's rude," she added with a mock glare.

"That's me," he brightly said, "Rude, and still not ginger."

Rose took off down an aisle, and when he caught up to her, she held a bottle in her hands.

"Whaddaya think?" she asked him.

"About what?" he questioned, confused.

"We've 'ad one helluva day," she complained.

_She crashed her lips to his. He responded immediately this time. Tasting her, touching her. She tasted of the wine they had drank, of stardust and hints of Time. Her skin was silky and soft. He groaned when she pushed him back against the headboard and crawled on top of him, never pulling her lips from his._

Memories of his dream came back to him, and he argued with himself for a moment before telling her, "It's very hard to get a Time Lord drunk, Rose."

"Is that a challenge?" she asked, her tongue peeked out from her smile, something he hadn't seen in oh, so very long, and hadn't expected to see again for some time. What had he done? Rose wouldn't back down from a challenge without a good reason. He'd been trying to be good.

"I'm sorry, M'lady, but I regret to inform you, that I do not carry the coin of this realm," the Doctor said in a serious voice.

Rose snorted. "Are you sayin' I 'ave to pay again?"

"Yep!" he replied, happily, popping the 'P.'

Rose grabbed a second bottle and walked back to the front of the store.

XxXxXxXx

_Challenge accepted, _Rose thought when the Doctor told her that it was hard to get a Time Lord drunk. She had drank with the Doctor before. Most of that was during the first year that they were together, back when he had those ice blue eyes you could fall into forever.

After a quick stop back at the room, to pick up the plastic cups she saw in there before, she led him to the roof of the hotel. It was another place she had found while wandering so long ago. There were tables and chairs up there. The area was maintained as a place where people could spend the evenings. The hotel was on the hills overlooking Bergen, and you could see the port, ocean, and more hills from their position. This time of year, it wouldn't be long before the furniture was taken down for the winter, but it was there now.

Another couple sat down on the other end, too far away and upwind of the Doctor and Rose to hear what they were talking about, so she felt free to discuss whatever she felt like talking about.

"I found this spot last time I was here," she told the uncharacteristically quiet part human next to her as she poured the two of them a bit of the wine. "On my wander, I found myself in the same grocer we were just in and 'ad picked up a bottle, then came back to the hotel to get properly drunk. 'Appened to notice a stairway marked 'roof' and came up here. Everyone had been lookin' for me. It was deserted up 'ere, an' I lost track of time."

She drank the finger's worth of port she had poured, sat back in the chair, and looked him in the eye. "Turned out that they thought I was gonna do sumpthin' stupid, which shocked me, as I had never, not once, thought about anythin' like that," she told him, pointedly.

He stared back at her, his eyes wide. He swallowed heavily, tore his eyes from hers, and downed his drink. As soon as he put his glass down, she poured for both of them again.

"Literally seconds after the last time I saw you," he started hesitantly, "Donna was standing right there in the TARDIS. She screamed at me, accused me of kidnapping her, and found...something of yours and accused me of kidnapping you." He sniffed and sat there for a moment, taking in the scenery.

"How'd she get in the TARDIS?" Rose asked.

"It was her wedding day, but her fiancee had been poisoning her with manufactured huon particles..." He told her the story of his day with Donna. How she slapped him several times, which caused Rose to laugh, how everything reminded him of her that day, and how the day ended.

The sun had already disappeared over the horizon. Most of the sky was a deep blue color that trailed off into pale blue, with the rest of the color spectrum in a narrow band near the horizon. The street lights had come on around the same time they got to the roof, and the effect was beautiful. The streets were lined with shades of gold, while the rest of the world was in shades of blue and black. Only the brightest stars were visible in the sky.

"So now you know why," he finished and downed his second drink.

She reached over, and grabbed the hand that still held the glass. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. He locked his fingers with hers as he always had, and she rubbed small circles on the back of his thumb.

"So what about you?"he asked.

"What kept me going before was the fact that I 'ad my family, and a slight 'ope that you'd come for me. I say slight, 'cause a big part of me was sure that you'd not even try, since me mum an' Mickey were here."

"Rose, I-"

"Don't. Just don't, Doctor," she interrupted him tiredly, pulling her hand out of his. "I know that you were tryin' to save me, and that you were tryin' to make sure I knew what I was doin'. But when it came down to it, you made a huge, life changing decision for me, without my input. Sound familiar?"

He nodded, looked down, and whispered, "Yeah, yeah it does." He sat back in his chair and leaned his head against the back of the chair with his eyes closed for a moment. "What about after the beach?"

"I continued my work," she simply stated.

"Which was?" he queried. He turned his eyes back to her.

"Finding my way back home," she told him. "I'll give ya all the specifics another time. _This_," she emphasized 'this' with a finger pressed to the table, "discussion 'snot good for tech babble."

"Fair enough," he replied with a head nod. They both took a sip.

Suddenly, the woman on the other side of the roof exclaimed and stood up. "They're back! Jacob, the stars are back!"

Everyone stood up and turned their eyes to the sky, and sure enough, the stars were coming out in force, more than she had seen in a long time. Less than what they would see, had there not been the light pollution from the city below, but enough that she knew, without a doubt that they had started showing again.

The woman then dragged her husband or boyfriend back inside the building, going on about calling someone to tell them.

When they were alone, Rose looked over at the Doctor, and found him watching her.

"We saved the multiverse today," he said with a soft smile.

"I didn't 'ave much ta do wit' it," she denied.

"What're you talking about?" he asked incredulously. "You were instrumental in it."

"I stood there," she told him. "I stood there and let a psychotic troll in a wheelchair wreak mental havoc on _him_."

"Whatever Davros said to him, I guarantee it was less than what I'm always thinking myself and he just brought it to the top for the moment," he tried to assure her.

"Ta, that helps a lot," she muttered sarcastically. She took another drink, then walked over to the railing and gripped it. She turned her face to the sky. There were three zeppelins overhead. The slow, low flying airships marred the beauty of the starry sky that had begun to be crossed with the ribbons of the Aurora Borealis. Over this part of the world, the Northern Lights would show up green more than any other color.

When he stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, she leaned in to his warmth automatically.

XxXxXxXx

As the Doctor held Rose, he looked at the sky. The sky that he may never fly into, depending on a great many things. He wouldn't tell Rose, not yet. He wouldn't get her hopes up for nothing.

"Does he really think that about himself?" she wondered.

"I'm the same man, Rose, and I don't want to lie to you, so-"

"No, you're not, not anymore," she cut him off.

What? He thought she was accepting the metacrisis! If she didn't really think he was the same-

"Not anymore than you are still the you wit' the ears an' the ice blue eyes," she clarified, ending his sudden, half panicked thoughts.

"Okay, then, I'm a new man," he agreed. Technically, he was after all.

"One so dangerous that the Doctor 'imself can't even 'andle ya," Rose angrily said, "But a human girl is supposed to be able to? What the 'ell am I supposed to do wit' that?" She suddenly spun around. "Frankly, I think that's a whole lot of shit."

"Well," he admitted, "I _did_ just commit genocide, again, without a second thought." The fact that he blew up so many was a source of disgust, but he didn't hold any guilt over it this time, and that fact scared him.

"I think that reason's a load of shit," she told him bluntly. "Pot, meet Kettle. I'd've done the same thing. I _have_ done the same thing," she reminded him. "It had to be done. I mean, wha' was 'e gonna do, eh? Let 'em go free ta do it all again? Have bloody tea wit' 'em?" She pointed a finger into his chest. "An' don't ya go feelin' guilty over that.

"I don't feel guilty," he admitted. "I should, but I don't."

"And that means that you have to be exiled from the only family you have, your home for centuries, and your entire universe?" she asked incredulously. Her eyes got wide and she took a step back, to where she was against the railing. "Or did you choose this?" she accused.

"No," he said quickly, then inwardly winced at how quickly he said it. He didn't want to sound like he didn't want to be there. Well, he didn't, but he didn't want it to sound like he didn't want to be with her.

"Did you even get a say in the matter?" she angrily asked.

"No," he told her, happy that she was angry on his behalf. He didn't dare to show it, though. "I didn't, but don't think that I wouldn't want to stay with you if I was given a choice. Could've done without the different universe, though. Those zeppelins are ugly." With those words, the look on her face softened, and she appeared to be almost amused.

He walked over to the table and poured the two of them another drink. He was feeling pleasantly warm from the drink. The port wine seemed to be allowing them both to talk without the anger overtaking everything, or the usual deflections.

Her features shifted again, back to suspicion.

"Did you know...before?" she asked, simply. He didn't need anymore words to know what she was asking. Did he know that the Other was going to betray their promise? Did he know that the Other was going to abandon them before they stepped out of the TARDIS?

"Yes," he told her honestly. Instantly, he saw the betrayal in her eyes and hastily clarified. "I found out when I left the console room. It's why I left the console room, actually." He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the railing. "So I could grab a few things."

She nodded. "Did you ever think to protest his decision?" she asked him, peeking at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Ah," he rubbed his neck, ashamed. He'd never thought of that.

She turned toward him and crossed her arms. "Did you even think about giving me a heads up so I could protest myself?"

"And that would be part two of the previous 'ah.'" He _had_ thought of telling her himself, but not so she could protest. He had wanted to explain things to her, then had quickly decided to wait for a time when they had more time. Clearly, that had been the wrong choice, or at least Rose thought so now. "Look, Rose, You've got a good life here. You've got your Mum, your Dad, a brother. You don't have to worry about money anymore. Everything you've ever wanted. And, you're not in danger all the time. You deserve a good life."

"I like runnin'," she told him, then added, "an' when 'ave I ever said this life was what I wanted?"

"Um, November 7, 1987?" he replied. The day she saved her real dad. The day she caused a paradox and almost destroyed the world. A dark look passed over Rose's face at the mention of that day.

"That," she started, "that's not...It coulda been anyone there, and I woulda still tried to save 'em. I just...I didn't want 'im to die alone." She took a deep breath.

"I know, I'm sorry to have even brought that up. But isn't it good? Having all of this, your family together, a sibling? And I'm here now, consider it a gift of the universe."

"Yeah, yeah, I suppose it is," she admitted. "Mum's not alone anymore, they have Tony to dote on." She smiled and shook her head. "You know, I begged and begged my Mum for a brother when I was five. Most of the other kids my age had a little sibling, or their Mum's were pregnant and I felt left out of the excitement."

"What have you got, now?" she asked. "You've lost everything."

"You," he told her, then thought that was a bit presumptuous. "Wellll, I hope I've got you. If I haven't been too much of an idiot. You've got me, just so's we're clear. Unless you don't-"

She suddenly hugged him, silencing him. "Yeah, you got me," she whispered.

He immediately hugged her back, happy at her declaration. The two of them stood there for a moment, holding each other, her head at his chest, and his chin on the top of her head. He was grinning like a loon and didn't care who saw.

A moment later, he asked, "Rose Tyler, what're we doin' on this roof? It's freezing!"

XxXxXxXx

"You're not, ya know," Rose told the Doctor as they stepped through the door to their room. He carried the wine and she carried the cups, both of which still had the last drink in them.

"Not what?" he asked.

"A gift," she replied. The instant hurt that marred his features broke her heart. She quickly continued her explanation, "You an' Donna both said it. Callin' yourself a gift implies tha' you're somehow less, that you're not your own person, or that you don't deserve to make your own decisions."

She closed the door and walked over to the little table where they had sat before, putting the cups down next to the bottles that the Doctor had already placed there. She shook off her blue jacket and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. She turned around and saw him watching her

"Thank you," he said, then cleared his throat.

He stepped closer and cupped her cheek in his right hand, then tentatively bent down, giving her the softest kiss she'd ever had. It was a rather chaste kiss, not much more than a peck. When it was over, he settled his forehead against hers.

Neither of them ever really knew who made the next move first. Suddenly, their lips crashed together. Their noses bumped and their teeth clacked together. Their passionate kiss was perfect in its imperfection.

One of her hands had made it to the back of his neck, and was on the move into his really great hair. The other one was on his chest and moving lower. The hand that was on her cheek moved into her hair. His other hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer.

Just before she was pulled flush with him, a knock sounded on the door, making the two break apart.

"Rose, it's me," her mother's voice came from the other side of the door, as if anyone else would have been knocking at that time of night.

Rose hid her face in the Doctor's chest and groaned, which caused the Doctor to chuckle. He rubbed the top of her back for a moment, then stepped back and sat down.

"You'd better go," he told her in a low voice, "I can't answer the door like this." He looked a bit fidgety and uncomfortable.

"Can't answer the-oh," she blushed and he grinned.

She picked up her cup and downed the contents, then stepped to the door when the knock sounded again.

"Yes, Mum?" she asked when she opened the door.

"I jus' got off the phone with Pete, an' he told me that the zeppelin won't be able to leave 'ere 'til about noon, 'cause of a storm. Rose Marion Tyler, 'ave you been drinkin'?" she said all in one breath.

"Yes, Mum, I have. Grown woman 'ere. Not doin' any drivin'," she told her mother. "Thanks for the heads up on the zep," she added.

"Where'd ya get liquor?" she queried.

"Walked to the shop an' picked it up," she answered. "Want some?" She turned back and asked the Doctor, "you don't mind, do ya?"

"Wine not?" he replied, then grinned. He got up and brought the bottle they had opened over to the door. "We've had enough anyway. Drink up Jackie."

"You two alright?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Yeah, we're good," Rose replied quickly.

"Yep," the Doctor said at the same time, popping the 'p'.

"Well, then, I can tell when 'm intrudin'. I'll just say goodnight now." She stepped back with a smile and went back into her room.

Rose closed the door and leaned against it with her eyes closed, her mind swirling with a million thoughts. When she opened her eyes, she found the subject of a large number of her thoughts sitting back in his chair. The Doctor was watching her seriously.

"Probably a good thing that just happened," he told her seriously. He picked up the cup he had been drinking, looked into it, then apparently decided that he didn't want it at the moment and put it back down.

She knew what he was getting at. They were both loosened up from the port, emotions were running high, and they both really needed to get to know each other again.

"Neither of us are exactly the same person we used to be," she commented, to which he nodded in agreement.

"I, um, I need to take a shower, an' get some sleep," she told him, not sure what she should do. She needed a moment to herself, that much was known.

"Yeah," was all he said.

She moved to the bathroom. Just before she got there, the Doctor called out, "Rose?"

"Yes?" she wondered.

"We're good, right?" He was still watching her, looking sad.

"Yeah, we're good," she replied, grinning. "You're one helluva kisser," she added with a wink, which made him grin back.

Once alone in the shower, she thought about the day, about Daleks and two Doctors (didn't that make the mind race?). Her mind then turned to Donna, Mickey, and everyone else.

That's when realization hit her.

XxXxXxXx

He turned on the telly, in an attempt to drown out the sound of the shower running. "No, no, no, no, no," he repeated to himself. "I will not think about Rose Tyler, naked, with just one door between us. No, no, no. I need something to keep myself occupied. What, what, what." He paced back and forth across the room for a moment, his hands in his hair until a burst of inspiration came to him. "Yes!"

He went over to the bed and began the process of emptying his pockets, to get a good idea of what he had on hand. His pockets held the items he had picked up in his mad rush just before being dumped on the beach. Also in the pockets were a rubber band ball, several wires, a stethoscope, a yo-yo, a deck of cards, a remote control for an RC car (where did that come from?), eight screws, notes from various time periods (he could probably toss those), three books, a banana, and a gizmo he had designed to detect holes in the fabric of reality. It was supposed to go "ding" when it found new stuff, and the little dish was supposed to go around. It had obviously never worked, as he never knew about the Daleks until the warning.

His last pocket he knew had only his suits and the TARDIS coral in it. He didn't even pull those out. It wasn't much to start a life with, but it was a helluva lot more than his other self was going to give him. The bastard. He quickly shoved the various items back in the pocket they came out of and sat down on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

The silence in his mind screamed, and he reached inside of his pocket in an attempt to feel the little one, to ground himself in a manner of speaking, but what his hand felt when he reached in was not what he expected. He pulled out the little package and looked at it. It was an envelope. A simple, unassuming envelope that bulged. How the hell did this get here?

He remembered the Other putting something in his pocket just before he stepped out of the TARDIS and immediately wanted to throw it away. He didn't want anything the bastard gave him. With a sigh, he fought the impulse to chuck it out the window and watch it fly down eight stories, but only because he didn't want other people getting hold of it.

He opened the envelope and peeked inside. What he saw there was a shock. It was his sonic screwdriver and the leather case he kept psychic paper in. He dumped the items on the bed and stared at them. Really, it was the least the Other could do, he had more psychic paper he could use, and remaking the screwdriver was a walk in the park if you had a TARDIS at your disposal.

He picked up the screwdriver, gave it an experimental flip, and put it in his pocket, spirits raised. He then grabbed the wallet, and opened it up. Inside was a message_._

_The one adventure I can never have. _

Oh, please. The bastard didn't even really want to be stuck on Earth. He understood the sentiment, of course, he was the same man. But it was really no more than a 'the grass is greener on the other side' sort of thing. A thing born out of the desire for a life with Rose and what she deserved.

The telly wasn't up loud enough, and the sound of the shower intruded again. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself calm again, even though he was aware that it wasn't really going to work, but then he became aware of another sound.

Rose Tyler was crying.


	5. Realization

Chapter 5: Realization

Wow, I've been getting some good feedback on this story :) made my day for sure :)

Huge shoutout to my friend and beta, Hawkerin, who polishes this up for me.

XxXxXxXx

While Rose was in the shower, she thought over the events of the day. Daleks. Bloody Daleks again. She'd gone up against them five times already, and had gone to some extreme lengths to rid the universe of them. Lengths she was still finding fallout from. Not to mention the terrible things that the Doctor had needed to do because of them. She was certain that the Doctor, the one in the other universe, would never be rid of them. Luckily, in this universe, she had yet to see any signs of Daleks, but that didn't mean anything.

She wasn't very happy with the other Doctor at the moment, but she still loved him. She hoped that whatever happened to him from then on, he'd be okay. She worried about him, she couldn't help it.

Her thoughts turned to two Doctors. That could have been fun, but the idiots would have probably killed each other, not literally... maybe literally. She knew the Doctor hated himself, which was probably the underlying reason why they were sent back here. The man was really his own worst enemy sometimes.

At least he still had Donna. That was something, though she didn't think she liked Donna all Doctor-fied. It was weird. She liked Donna and she loved the Doctor, but the two personalities in one mind were, wrong. Something was very wrong with it, but she couldn't pin what it was.

Apparently Martha had traveled with the Doctor after Rose and before Donna. She as glad he wasn't alone, though she couldn't help the bit of jealousy that seeped into her over the other woman. She'd been with the Doctor when Rose wanted to be. She liked Martha. She admired the woman's negotiation tactic. It bought them needed time. She hoped it was just a bluff, though.

And Mickey decided to stay in the other universe. That wasn't actually much of a shock. Mickey's Grandmother had died, and that was one of the main reasons that he had stayed in this universe the first time. She'd miss him. She'd literally known him her entire life. But he had to live his own life, not an extension of Rickey's. She wished him the best.

It was good to see Sarah Jane again. She missed her. The two would occasionally get together when Rose was on Earth, to the Doctor's horror. Rose teased him for a long time after seeing the pictures of the two bodies he had while she was with him. She made him show her pictures of all of his bodies a bit after that.

Her mind turned to her friend Jack. Jack, who she was so close to. She'd say that he was like a brother to her, except they flirted far too much for that relationship. She had thought Jack was dead, but learned while in the alternate time-line with Donna that he was alive and heading up the last Torchwood branch in Cardiff. She was proud of him. He'd done well for himself.

She knew that he had been hit by the Dalek's ray. She was sure of it, his skeleton had shown and everything. So how was he still alive? There was no way. Even the Doctor might not regenerate from a full hit. The only reason he was still alive was because the laser had just glanced him.

She had no answers, so her mind turned back to the damned Daleks. She thought about the way they intended to destroy everything. The test of their weapon had made those people into little piles of dust. She had a memory of things disintegrating like that before. A gold tinged memory that played in her mind like a video, like she had watched it on the telly, complete with background music. In that memory, she had made it happen, with no more than a thought. She could have chosen any way to take out the Daleks. Completely wipe them from existence, turn them into stone, explode them, whatever, and she had chosen to tear them apart in the exact same way that this last lot had chosen to tear apart everything.

A horrible thought occurred to her. Had she seen all of this? Had she chosen this? Had she made the man in the other room? Had she hurt the other Doctor? She already knew that the incident was what made him regenerate. He had admitted that taking in the Vortex was what had done it, though, at the beginning, he had omitted the fact that it had been taking it from her that had done it.

She ran through all of the memories that stemmed from that day.

_I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god...I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them...The Time War ends...I bring life...I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be. _

She was certain now that she hadn't deliberately done anything to hurt the Doctor. She had been overwhelmed. She probably thought that it was an incidence in the past, which, considering that was 198,000 years in the future, it was. She was certain that she had seen snatches of it, and used that as inspiration. But there was something else that was bugging her.

"I bring life," she whispered to herself. Why did she say that? All she had done was deal out death.

Suddenly, the answer hit her and she slid down the wall of the shower.

Jack had died back then. She had brought him back to life.

He died again just earlier that day, and the Doctor hadn't seemed surprised to see Jack back alive.

How many times had he died and come back?

With the realization, she slid down the wall, crying.

XxXxXxXx

The first thing the Doctor wanted to do as soon as he heard Rose crying was to barge in there and find out why. He even had his hand on the door, ready to push it open before he stopped himself.

She was obviously trying to be quiet. She didn't want him to know that she was crying. He wanted to destroy the git that put her in that state, but he didn't think that she'd take it too well if he suddenly took off to another universe to go do that.

He put his head against the wall and listened to her faint cries. It was the least he could do. He had done this as well. The sounds disappeared, and a couple of minutes later, he heard the shower stop running.

With that, he scrambled back over to the bed, moved his jacket off of it and onto the chair he had been sitting in earlier, kicked his trainers off, and went back to the bed. He kicked back like he had been there all along and tried to concentrate on the news show that broadcast in Norwegian.

The Door to the bathroom opened, and Rose stepped out. From the way she looked, he would have never known she was crying just a few minutes before. More proof of his theory. She wore a nondescript white, terrycloth robe that must have been in the bathroom and was using a matching towel to dry her hair. Her face was entirely free of makeup, and he thought she looked more beautiful without the thin covering.

He tried not to speculate on what would be under the robe. Rose didn't have anything else to wear that he knew of other than her clothes from that day. And now was not the time for his mind to wander in that direction. He was getting as bad as Jack. Well, maybe not that bad.

"Good shower?" he asked nonchalantly as she wrapped her hair up with the towel.

Rose immediately deflated. "You know, don't you?" she accused.

Well, so much for not letting her know that he knew. What gave it away? Maybe she was talking about something else?

"Know what?" he asked.

Rose came over and dropped down on the edge of the bed near his hip. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it with a click. She did that twice more before she finally got some words out. He had sat up in the meantime and put his hand on her shoulder, reminding her that he was right there.

"Is Jack...you know?" she haltingly started. She gestured with her hands, trying to make herself understood without coming right out and saying it.

Jack? Jack was what she was crying about? With all the things that happened that day, why would she be crying about-_oh_. He was thick, he was so very thick.

"Jack is, um, well Jack can't die," he started. "And when I say that he can't die, what I really mean is that he does die, and then, you know, comes back to life. He'll die a final time and stay that way eventually, but for now, he just pops back. It's a really handy trick to have, you know, not to die, but-"

"Can you stop saying die?" Rose suddenly burst out, her voice cracking. "How many times?"

"I don't know, I'm sorry," he told her softly.

"It makes so much sense now," she said, sniffing. "In the other time-line, he'd come back from a mission covered in blood, or 'is clothes torn, or somethin', and he'd be fine. He'd swear it wasn't 'is own, or it was a small cut that just bled a lot, or..." she cried out and put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, my God, 'e was tryin' ta keep me from knowin'!"

She pulled her feet up on the bed with her and wrapped her arms around her knees. He pulled her into a hug and she went willingly. He held her, worried about how quiet she was. His Rose could appear to be so stoic sometimes, and that wasn't always a good thing for emotional humans.

"It's all my fault," Rose whispered. "He's been through so much, and it's all 'cause of me. I didn't even ge' ta talk to 'im properly."

"Hey, hey, hey, now. Don't beat yourself up over this. It's okay. Yes, Jack's had some...not very good things happen to him, but he's alright, and he doesn't hate you," the Doctor tried to assure Rose. He scooted over to make some more room for her, and pulled her along with him gently until they were laying next to one another.

He pushed the escaped strand of her still damp hair back from her cheek and got a good look at her. She looked so tired. He pulled back so that he could get off the bed and pull up the duvet, but Rose tightened her grip on him.

"Let's get under these covers," he said softly. She seemed to realize that they were laying on them, and moved to help. A minute later, they were both laying on the bed, under the covers, further apart than before. The situation made him feel a bit self conscious, which was new.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked him suddenly.

Her question made him smile. "Yes, Rose, I'm fine," he answered.

"Are you sure? What about the-" she waved, indicating his head. It took him a couple seconds to realize that she was asking about his telepathy, about the silence in his mind.

"I'm fine," he repeated. "Exhausted, though. Had a kip in the car on the way here, but blimey, I think this body'll wanna sleep half its life away." He shuddered at the thought.

Rose giggled and scooted closer. "Third," she corrected.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Eight hours a day is one third of twenty-four. It's basic math," she teased.

The Doctor briefly considered tickling her for her cheek, but decided against it. He settled for shaking his head and telling her that she needed to get some sleep.

A few minutes later, her breathing slowed and he knew she had dropped off into sleep. As he laid there, watching her sleep for a few moments, his mind whirred with a million thoughts. Possibilities, worries, dreams. He fell asleep with a smile on his face, thinking about the kisses the two of them had shared that day.

XxXxXxXx

After a dreamless night, the first in many months, Rose woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. A beam of light from the window landed right on her face, and for a moment, she wondered why her blackout curtains were opened.

Then she realized her arm and a foot were laying on someone and her head was hurting a bit. _What?!_ She panicked for a moment, not realizing what happened until she realized that it was the Doctor she was laying on and all her memories of the previous day came rushing back to her.

The knock on the door sounded again, reminding her of the reason she had woken up. She got up immediately, put her robe in place, de-tangled her hair from the towel it was wrapped in when she fell asleep, and looked through the peephole. It was her mother at the door. She opened the door, and looked at her mother bleary eyed.

"What is it, Mum?" she questioned, shortly.

"Now that's no way to talk to your mother, little lady," she admonished. She softened a little when she finally took in her daughter's appearance. "I woke you, didn't I?" she asked.

In answer, Rose just nodded her head. "What time is it?" she yawned.

"Half past eight," her mother replied.

Rose was astonished. She had slept nine hours. She hadn't slept more than six hours in a night in years. Of course, she'd also been up for two days before giving in to the need for sleep the night before.

"Where's 'imself, then?" her mother wondered, looking around Rose to see in the room.

"In bed still, keep it down, will ya?" Rose told her.

"Wear 'im out, did ya?" she asked with a wink.

"Mum!" Rose's eyes widened, and she glanced over at the bed to make sure the Doctor was still out and couldn't hear her. "For the bazillionth time, we weren't ever like that, an' even if we were, I'd not be-no, never mind, it's none of ya business," she hissed.

"Alrigh', alright," her mother replied, "keep ya knickers on." She rolled her eyes at Rose. "I only knocked to drop this off." She held out a white plastic bag.

Rose took the bag and looked inside. In the bag was a hairbrush, a comb, two toothbrushes, and some toothpaste.

"You're a lifesaver, Mum," she praised.

"Oh, now you're appreciative," Jackie complained.

The Doctor groaned and put his hand to his head.

"Don't forget, the zeppelin'll be 'ere 'round noon an' we're leavin' at 11:00" her mother reminded Rose before she stepped back to her room.

Rose closed the door, and turned back to the Doctor, who shielded himself from the light with his hand. Rose had to fight the urge to giggle at his appearance. His hair stood out in all directions, except for one part on the side of his head, which was flattened down. His tongue smacked in his mouth and he made a face like he had tasted something disgusting.

"Blimey," he complained. "'S like a torch." He sat up and stretched, then looked around. When his eyes landed on Rose, his face lit up, like he had just realized that yesterday was real.

"Good morning, Doctor," she greeted him, as she went to the table and grabbed the glasses from the night before.

"Good morning, Rose," he replied.

She filled a glass with water and brought it to him. "Here, for your head," she told him.

He accepted it gratefully and drunk it down while she liberated her new hairbrush from it's package.

As soon as her hairbrush was free, she went into the bathroom to take care of her appearance. She laid out the other items her mother had picked up on the counter by the sink so that the Doctor couldn't miss them, and set to work fixing herself up.

It was going to be a long day.


	6. Identity

Starting Over: Chapter 6: Identity

The Doctor stood on the tarmac and stared at the giant, grey balloon with a look of disdain. This was how they were supposed to get from Norway to England? A quick inspection of the visible parts of the balloon showed that this universe's airship technology was far more advanced than the other universe's technology. That was to be expected, with the fact that they were more common. The gondola was larger than what he was used to seeing, and it could obviously carry far more than its similar sized counterpart on the other side of the void in the same time.

"Well, are ya gonna stare at it all day, or are ya gonna board?" Jackie Tyler called to him, from nearby.

He walked toward the gondola and up the ramp that came out of it. The interior of this zeppelin looked much like the interior of trains. He followed the directions the lady at the door gave him, which led him to a sliding door that was closed. There was a window in the door, with a curtain that was pushed aside, and he could see Rose sitting in the room.

On the other side of the small room, there sat a portly, older man with thick glasses and a mostly bald head. The two of them were in deep discussion over some papers that were strung out over one of those tables that collapsed when not needed. He could hear their discussion from the other side of the door.

"...an' 'e isn' a threat to any of us or to Earth," Rose told the man.

"Yes, Commander Tyler, I get that, but protocol states that-" the man argued.

"I know what the protocols state, Thomas," Rose argued back, curtly, cutting the older man off. "I set up those particular rules myself, 'cause we don't know about who_ they_ are. I'm tellin', ya, though, several of us _do_ know the Doctor. And those people include the Director 'imself. _He's_ not an unknown equation."

Well, that settled the question of what they were talking about. The Doctor wasn't sure if he should be listening to this or not. With the door closed, it was obviously a private conversation, but it was also about him, and included the one person who's thoughts he wanted to hear the most.

"And just how well do you know this 'Doctor' of yours?" the man, Thomas asked with accusation in his voice.

"Well enough," Rose stated, confidently.

"I'm not sure I trust your judgment on this matter," the older man told her.

"You don' have to trust me, you jus' have to do what I say," she shot back. "The Doctor is the one who stopped Lumic. That alone more than entitles 'im to what 'm askin', no, _telling_ you to do."

The Doctor listened to this, his heart warming at Rose's words. She was fighting for him. He didn't know what exactly she was fighting over, but he was sure she'd tell him soon. Having heard enough, he was going to back off and go explore, but when Rose saw him, she waved him in without taking her attention from the argument at hand. He opened the door and stepped in.

"Should my ears be burning?" the Doctor joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Rose shot him an amused glance while Thomas ignored him and continued his argument.

"I don't work for you, Commander Tyler, I work for the Director-"

"Who will fully agree with me, which is why 'e sent the paperwork in the first place, though he coulda avoided sendin' you wit' it," Rose interrupted him again.

"Well, Miss Tyler, I won't argue with you on this matter any longer. I clearly cannot change your mind. When it all goes pear shaped, let me know," he said with a hint of anger in his voice. He stood up and left the room, stumbling a bit when the airship lifted off.

When he left, the Doctor took his seat and looked at Rose, who mumbled to herself as she gathered up the papers. Even with his superior hearing, he couldn't make out everything she said. He got the gist of it, though. She was insulting the other man's intelligence.

"Thank you," he told her.

She looked up from her shuffling, startled. "What for?" she asked.

"Well, whatever that was about, you obviously just went to bat for me," he pointed out. Noting her confused look at his statement, he added fondly, "You never even thought about doing anything else, did you?"

"Well, I'm just too good," Rose said as she closed the folder.

"So, how long have we got to deal with bald and grumpy?" he asked, which caused Rose to giggle.

"We should reach London at about 5:30," Rose told him.

"Oh, well, not too long then, I can't wait to meet your baby brother," he replied jovially.

"5:30 a.m.," Rose corrected.

"Blimey, what's a bloke supposed to do for seventeen hours?" he complained.

"Well, some of those hours will be spent sleeping," Rose informed him. She took a deep breath, as if she were steeling herself for something unpleasant. "As for the rest," she continued, "we need to start with these."

She turned the folder around and slid it across the table to him, along with a pen she had in her pocket.

"I know you hate paperwork of all kinds, but this does need to be done," she told him sympathetically. "I put this packet together myself, to allow people who weren't from this world and needed to settle down here permanently to have all of the paperwork they need to get through their daily life. It's mostly for humanoid aliens seeking asylum, but-what?" She noticed his odd look at her.

"You put together a packet to establish human identities for aliens?" he asked in awe.

"Well, yeah," she said, as if that were obvious. "'Snot like they're all invaders. We get crashed ships with people who we can't get back home yet, some come 'ere tryin' to get away from a war, the occasional person displaced out of time, and-" her words were cut off when the Doctor leaned over the tiny table, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard.

When he sat back down, she looked dazed, a fact which he was smug about.

"What was that for?" she asked, then quickly added, "Not that 'm complainin' or anything."

"Rose Tyler, you are brilliant," he praised her. Rose blushed at his declaration and shook her head. "Yes, you are. Who else would have thought this up?"

"This was nothin', 'smostly papers I had ta put together when I came 'ere," she told him.

"Yeah, but you thought of putting it all together in one place to help people," he affirmed.

"We'll see how much ya like it when you're finished," she replied seriously.

He opened the folder. Inside, about 20 sheets of paper laid, all printed forms of various types.

"We usually have someone sittin' with the person filling out the forms, to explain the whys and 'ows," she informed him. "I don' think ya need help with that, but I'll sit 'ere with ya to bounce ideas off of."

He took out the first sheet and read the first question. "Name? Well, that's easy, John Smith." As he went to fill in the blanks, Rose grabbed his hand and kept him from doing so.

"You might want to think about that. The name you choose now will be what anyone who doesn't know you well enough to call you what they think is your nickname will use. It'll be stuck with you."

She was right. This wasn't something that he could drop in a heartbeat. The Doctor thought about it for a moment.

"I've been using the name off and on since my first body," he finally told her.

"Okay, then, as long as you're sure," Rose said as she let go of his hand. "What about the middle name?"

He sat back and thought for a moment. That was a harder choice. Whatever he chose should have some meaning to him.

Rose suddenly had that look she got when she had an idea. "I get your reasons for John Smith," Rose said. "But maybe we should lengthen it to Johnathan?" she asked. "I know a couple of John Smiths, and when a new person meets them, they think 'sa fake name, even though there's somethin' like 30,000 people in Great Britain with the name. People will automatically shorten it to John without really thinking about it," she explained.

It was a good idea, he thought. She had a point, and it wouldn't make a difference.

"Okay," he agreed.

"As for your middle name, that should have some meaning to it," Rose put in, unknowingly echoing his thoughts on the matter.

"Well, there's so many possibilities that have meaning and would fit in with the basic English name," he started. "Let's see... Jason has roots in Greek, and means 'to heal.' There's Alex, Alexander, and other variants, all derived from the Greek word alexo which means, 'to defend' or 'to help.' Chance, as in 'luck,' but is derived from the Latin cadens, meaning 'falling.'" he thought for a moment, then added, "nah, don't like that. Joshua has Hebrew and Aramaic origins, but essentially means 'salvation.' There's Benjamin, derived from Hebrew, meaning 'son of the right hand.'" He wiggled the fingers of his right hand, which was the hand this body grew out of.

"Nah, that's too weird," Rose interrupted his babble, shook her head, and scrunched up her nose. The entire time he had been talking, Rose had been scribbling in a little notebook. He wondered what she was writing down.

"Okay, Benjamin's off the table," he agreed. "We also have...Theta, based in Greek, I used to be called Theta Sigma, but I hate that nickname." He shuddered. "There's also Storm, that meaning's obvious, and Old English. In Pokiliniso, Storm also means, 'wisdom.' Evander, also derived from Greek, means 'good man.' Blimey, a lot of these names are Greek derived." He stopped babbling and looked at her, wondering what had her attention.

She finished scribbling in her book and looked up at him, expectantly.

"What are you writing in that book?" he asked, folding his arms.

"Jus' writin' down possibilities," she answered. She handed the book over to him so he could see.

The Doctor picked up the little notebook and looked at the page she had been writing on. Rose's handwriting repeated his human name over and over, with different middle name possibilities added on.

_Johnathan Jason Smith_

_Johnathan Alexander Smith_

_Johnathan Chance Smith_ -This one was marked through.

_Johnathan Joshua Smith_

_Johnathan Benjam _-This one had been struck through several times, with enough pressure that the pen had gone through the paper.

_Johnathan Theta S _-was also struck through and unfinished.

_Johnathan Storm Smith_

_Johnathan Evander Smith_

"I'm, um," Rose started nervously, "just writin' out each possibility to see how it flows an' looks. Mum did the same thing when she an' Pete named Tony." She played with a strand of her hair and looked sheepish.

He was touched at her gesture. "Tony Tyler, yep, I see what you mean," he grinned. "What's his middle name?"

"Peter," she replied. "That was the one thing Mum wanted. The other possibility for a firs' name was Alan. They couldn't make up their minds between Tony and Alan, and wound up flippin' a coin."

The two of them laughed together over that. When the laughter died down, far too quickly, he thought, he picked up the pen and crossed out Joshua and Jason.

"Why'd ya get rid of those two?" Rose asked, curiously.

"Why? Did you really like those?" he asked, unsure. The lessened confidence he had been feeling was foreign to him. He wondered if that was some more of what he was now calling his "inner Donna" coming out, or if it was just the situation.

"It's not about what I want, Doctor," she was quick to assure him. "'Syour name, yeah? I was just wondering."

"They just didn't feel right," he replied, to which she smiled and nodded, satisfied.

Now he was left with _Johnathan Storm Smith_, _Johnathan Evander Smith_, and _Johnathan Alexander Smith. _He liked all of them. This was going to be a difficult task.

He started tapping the notebook with the pen, frustrated. He didn't want to pick a name. He was the Doctor, that's all he needed. Anything else was was temporary, and now here he was, being forced to choose a permanent name.

Before his thoughts could spin into a darker realm, Rose reached out and grabbed his hand. "I don' need ta be an empath to tell that you're gettin' frustrated already. It's okay." She gave his hand a squeeze. "You shoulda seen me when I was doin' this. I didn't 'ave to come up with a lot o' the information, an' I still threw paperwork a couple of times. I swear, Hell is piles of paperwork that never get smaller," she finished.

He hadn't thought about her having to become a legal person of this universe before. All that frustration with coming up with an identity when she had never existed. For Mickey, it would have been easy, he could just step into Rickey's life. His grandmother probably never even knew that her real grandson had died. For Jackie, they would have had to make up some story about the three years, but that was all. She could have stepped in to her counterpart's shoes, at least publicly.

Rose, however, not only had to get integrated into this world, but had to try to get publicly integrated with an already established family that she had never existed in.

"What did you tell people?" he asked her. At his question, Rose got a sad look on her face.

"In this world, 'm officially a distant relative of both Jackie and Pete, where one of his cousins married one of hers. Everyone on that branch of the Tyler and Prentice families are all gone now, so there's no one who can say any different if there was actually a child born to them. They 'adopted' me after Jackie 'regained her memories', because I had 'elped her without knowin' who she was."

"So, your mum isn't your mum?" he asked.

"In public, anyway," she answered. "Though I sometimes slip up and call her Mum. People just assume she asked me to call her that." She waved that off- both metaphorically and physically- and added, "I had the option to be their daughter publicly. The story was basically a 'long lost daughter given up for adoption when they were still poor' sort of thing. Mum came up with it. She's always loved spinnin' a good yarn. That woulda come with a media circus, though, an' I couldn't deal with that at the time. Still have ta deal with the media, though."

She wasn't looking at him when she finished her explanation. She was making a show of digging in her pockets for something. She couldn't get rid of the emotion in her voice, though. It held a deep sadness mixed with an anger that seemed old. It might have permeated her existence since they had been separated.

Suddenly, she turned the conversation back to the task at hand. "Okay, so what're your options, then?" she asked. She didn't want to talk about it anymore right then. He knew the tactic all too well, and decided to let her do it, for now.

He looked down to make sure, which he really didn't need to, and told her, "Storm, Evander, and Alexander."

"Say the full names out loud?" she suggested.

He did, then immediately crossed out 'Evander'. "Well, then, down to two possibilities," he said. "Uh, I like both of them. Let's see...Alexander, Alex, Alec? No, not Alec, that's just. No, I hate that. Xander? Nah," he denied that at the same time Rose scrunched up her face. "Storm," he continued. "Really, there's no variations of Storm, not unless you want the Basque name Ekaitz, and I don't like that, it means 'leaper of sheep' in Anitiana. Well, they're not sheep, really, but they look somewhat similar, and are used for the same purposes."

Rose giggled, which had been his intention when he suggested the last couple of names. After her giggle, he got back to the business at hand.

"I don't know which one to choose," he admitted. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think Jackie Tyler's way is the way we have to go. Of course, I don't have any coins on me right now."

"Nothing new," Rose quipped.

He pretended as if he hadn't heard her jab. "We'll spin the pen, if it points more to, let's say the door, we'll go for Alexander, if it points more to the wall, we'll go for Storm." He put the pen down on the table and made to spin it, when he noticed Rose's 'I-have-a-really-great-idea-but-I'm-not-sure-about-it' look. It was even complete with the chewed thumb. Those ideas were always her best.

"What?" he asked her encouragingly.

"Who says ya have to choose?" she rhetorically asked. "'Sa middle name, nothin' says ya can't 'ave two. Lotsa people have two middle names." Oh she was brilliant. Better say that out loud.

"Johnathan Alexander Storm Smith," he said out loud, tasting the words. He gave her his best thousand watt grin, which she blushed at, then returned. "What do you think?" he asked her and waggled his eyebrows playfully.

"I think you should keep it," she answered.

He wrote down his new name in the blanks provided for it. He had to squeeze his new middle name in.

"Okay, that's one question down," he flipped the corners of the pages. "Only about a million more to go," he complained.

"That was probably the hardest decision," Rose assured him.

"Next question: birthday," he read off of the paper. It shouldn't be this hard to read that.

"That's somethin' I never even thought about," Rose realized. "The things you don't think about when travelin', like age and birthdays. What is your birthday?" she asked.

He tugged on his ear as he admitted that he didn't know. Then explained to her about how they didn't do birthdays. After a moment of back and forth, they chose to use the day that this version of him had sprung into existence as a birthday.

They had decided to say he was 32 years old based on his looks, that he was born in London, which matched his accent, and that he was of English descent on his father's side and Scottish on his mother's.

They had needed to make up a short family tree for him, but could hide it well enough thanks to the Cyber War. A key records office had been destroyed in a fire that started when a few people who didn't have earpods controlling them had tried to fight off some Cybermen. It had become a great way to get people into the system without having previous records on them.

The Doctor got more and more depressed as they went through the pages.

XxXxXxXx

Rose was on her way back from getting herself and the Doctor another cuppa when her mother ran into her, almost literally. She had absentmindedly stepped out of her cabin on the airship right into Rose's path, nearly knocking the scalding hot tea over the both of them.

"Oh, 'm sorry, Swee'hear', didn' see ya there," she said.

"'Saright," Rose replied. "Jus' keep an eye on where you're goin', yeah?"

"Where's 'imself, then?" Jackie asked after she noticed that Rose was alone.

"He's in the cabin, finishin' up that pile o' paperwork." Rose told her mother. "'E's goin' a bit stir crazy."

"Oh, that one never could stay still for long, could 'e? Same no matter what body he's in," her mum scoffed.

"Why'd Dad have to send Thomas?" Rose asked.

"I dunno," her mum replied. "I didn' even know 'e was gonna be 'ere." Her mother hated the man almost as much as Rose did. Thomas Trout was nothing if not unimaginative. He was a stickler for efficiency and the rules. The man's personality could use some major improvements. Her friend Jake often said that he needed to get laid. Rose thought it'd take a lot more than that.

"Oh, you'd better get that tea to him 'fore it gets cold," her mum suddenly realized.

Gratefully, Rose took leave of her mother and made her way down the narrow hallway toward the cabin she and the Doctor were sharing. On her way, she thought about her mother's observation that the Doctor never could stay still for long. It was true, and Rose wondered if the Doctor could do this; If he could stay still in one place. She didn't know if she was enough.

She had a way to travel through time and space, but it could be dodgy sometimes, and she only used it when she absolutely had to. The Doctor was a Time Lord, and could probably make her Vortex manipulator work properly if it stopped working. She wouldn't tell him about it yet, though. She wanted -no _needed_ to know if she was enough.

She reached the door to their cabin, slid it open, and caught the Doctor ranting to himself about how this universe needed a Boeing plant. He noticed her presence immediately and came over.

"Why zeppelins?" he asked as he took the tray from her.

"The _Hindenburg_ never existed here, and one of the Wright Brothers died on their first flight. People gravitated toward airships because of all the accidents in early airplanes," Rose explained.

"So they went with the slower technology because of a few accidents?" the Doctor scoffed. "Humans, I'll never understand you. One minute, you're all, 'Let's go to a black hole.' The next, you're all, 'no airplanes because we had a few accidents."

"Well, maybe you should make a workable airplane, then," Rose teased.

"There you go, that's what I'll do." he seemed delighted by the idea. Of course he'd think that would be a great idea.

"It's an expensive thing to do," Rose warned.

"Oh, there's a thought. Money. I'll have to get money. I've always been a bit vague about money." He looked sad at the thought. Rose knew that he'd wanted for nothing when he had the TARDIS. If he needed actual money for something, he'd go to a cash point and use his sonic. She wondered if he even had his sonic now.

"We'll get to that in time," Rose told him.

He blew out a big breath, his cheeks puffing up the way they always did. "Yeah, we'll see." They both drank their tea in silence for a minute.

Rose suddenly had an idea. She stood up and held her hand out to the Doctor. He looked up at her, questioning.

"Come on, I have something to show you," she said and wiggled her fingers.

He took her hand and let her lead him from the room and down the corridor.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You'll see-ee," Rose sing-songed.

At the end of the hallway, there were three doors.

"This one," Rose informed, pointing to to door on the end, "goes to the cockpit. This one," she pointed to the door on the left, "goes to the loo. This one," she pointed to the the door to the right and looked down the corridor to make sure no one else could see them. "This one is where we're goin'."

The door was locked, as it usually was, which was no problem. She reached into an inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small cloth roll filled with several thin bits of metal. She bent over to pick the lock, and suddenly there was a very familiar blue and silver tube in her face.

"Need this?" he asked cheekily.

"So you do have a sonic?" she asked, delightedly, then took the device from him, set it to the most used setting, and pointed it at the lock on the door. She was happy to hear the warble sound again, followed by the satisfying click of the door lock. So very satisfying.

"Did you just sigh?" The Doctor teased.

She couldn't believe she had actually sighed. Damn. How should she deal with this? The little part of herself that spoke in Jack's voice popped out.

"A girl's gotta get her jollies some way," she flirted as she handed the sonic back to him.

"You know, you didn't have to go through all this trouble for a snog in the cupboard," he flirted back as he followed her through. She closed the door behind them.

"This isn't a snog in the cupboard," she told him, somewhat shocked at the way he was flirting back with her. They had always flirted, but not like this. This had a sense of inevitability that sort of scared her.

"Shame," he replied, then winked.

She couldn't keep her shock hidden apparently, because he suddenly asked her, "what?"

"It's jus', well, you're...different," she replied.

"Good different or bad different?" he asked. She was instantly reminded of an almost identical conversation way back when he changed on her the first time.

"Good different," she told him, honestly.

At her words, his eyes went wide for a moment, then he grinned one of his happy, daft grins.

"Come on, Goofball," she told him, "you'll like this," she informed him with a shake of her head and a giggle.

They went down the short, narrow staircase that had a small landing and a door at the bottom.

"Close your eyes and no peeks," she instructed him when they were at the bottom of the stairs.

The Doctor immediately squeezed his eyes shut, then popped one open real quick before shutting it again.

"Okay, eyes closed, no peeking," he said, happily.

She felt anticipation at showing him this. Was this how he always felt when showing people the wonders of the universe?

Rose opened the simple, unassuming door, took the Doctor's hand, telling him to keep his eyes closed, and guided him into the room. She then closed the door behind them.

"Okay now, you can open your eyes," she told him when she got into position where she could see his expression. His eyes popped open, and he took in his surroundings. She felt joy bubbling inside her at seeing his face light up when he realized what was going on.

XxXxXxXx

They were standing in a room that was mostly made of clear plastic on two walls and the floor. The other two walls were really one wall that curved around. There were support bars across the plastic. They broke up the view just enough to keep a person from getting vertigo when they came into the room. The view outside showed the ocean going by, and they could see a coastline in the distance.

"This is not bad. Not bad at all," the Doctor said happily.

"This model of zeppelin was designed for observation and scientific study originally," Rose lectured. "There's another room like this on the other end of the gondola. 'S larger and has three walls, but its door is left open an' it's easier to get to. This one stays private. There's a coating on the Plexiglas that keeps it from being seen from the outside."

"You've spent some time in here," the Doctor commented.

"Yeah," Rose replied, looking out the window and not meeting his gaze.

"It's nice," he said softly.

The two of them stood there, looking out over the gray-blue waves. During the silence, the Doctor thought about his new self, the future, and this new Rose.

"Why do you follow me so easily?" Rose blurted out after a few minutes of silence. "I mean, you jus' take what I say and-"

"Why not?" the Doctor interrupted. "You know this world. I don't. I trust you, so why not do what you say?"

Rose stared at him wide eyed. "You trust me?" she asked, her voice went up a higher pitch than normal.

He looked over her. "Well, yeah," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Maybe you shouldn't," she told him seriously.

He was surprised at that statement. "Why not?"

"No one else seems to," she said sadly.

"Now I don't believe that," he chided.

"Really?" she asked, incredulously. She began listing various cases. "Thomas flat out told me righ' before ya walked in tha' 'e didn' trus' me. My own mum jus' spent years tellin' me that 'm wrong for wantin' to cross ta another universe to be with someone I love, the hypocrite. She jus' crossed universes to follow me, usin' a button I tol' 'er not ta use. I told her again an' again that if what I was doing worked, the walls between the universes would close as if they 'ad never been cracked, an' she could get trapped over there away from 'er son and 'usband, but she apparently didn't believe me, 'cause she came anyway. Mickey did the same thing, though he at least wasn' leavin' any actual family behind. But what 'e did was even worse 'cause 'e 'elped Mum to do it."

He could tell she was getting emotional as her accent became thicker, and she dropped more letters from her words.

"Okay, I can see how that would make you feel that way," the Doctor replied slowly before he pulled her in for a hug. He rubbed her back for a moment while he thought about how to make her feel better.

"Who's this Thomas anyway?" he queried.

"Thomas Trout works for Dad. He's all about efficiency," she said into his jacket, her voice muffled a little.

"What he says doesn't matter, Rose. Remember that," he told her. "As for your mum and Mickey, I hate to say it, but neither of them have ever exactly approved of your way of doing things."

Rose jerked her head up and looked at him angrily for a second, but before the Doctor could start to wonder if he should get out of reach, her expression became thoughtful, then sad.

"I suppose you're right," she whispered and laid her head back on his chest.

After a few minutes, they moved into a more comfortable position on the floor, where they silently watched the ocean under them.

Not long after they sat on the floor, the second bottle of wine that they had bought the night before but never opened made an appearance from one of the Doctor's pockets. The two of them sat there, drinking straight from the bottle until Jackie came looking for them.

XxXxXxXx

When Jackie opened the door, she walked in on them singing _"Bohemian Rhapsody" _in the silliest way possible.

Yeah, they were going to be okay, if they didn't get liver damage first. Where they hell did they get that bottle of wine?

"Food's ready, you two."


End file.
